The Role of Acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine in Cystic Fibrosis: A Review and Analysis of the Literature

By Deirdre Murphy - Online MSc - Advanced Oriental Medicine

Abstract

Introduction

Cystic fibrosis (CF) an inherited condition affecting 70,000 individuals worldwide has a life expectancy of 40 years. Intense treatment regimes place significant burden on patients, compromised by medication side-effects, respiratory infections, fatigue, depression and pain, adversely affecting quality of life and survival. This research aimed to conduct a full review of the literature, which has not been done previously, regarding the role of acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine (CHM), for the treatment of CF to provide a full picture of information on this topic and to identify the role of acupuncture and CHM in managing this condition, identify research deficits, and critically appraise and synthesise information to inform future clinical practice and research.

Study design

A review and analysis of the literature.

Methodology

A literature review protocol, designed a priori using English language data only, involved searching MEDLINE, CENTRAL, CINAHL and other databases for interventions using acupuncture/CHM and CF. Two human and four animal studies were quality appraised using GRAT, STRICTA, NICMAN and ARRIVE checklists and all were narratively synthesised.

Findings

Five human and five animal studies met inclusion criteria, four as abstracts only. A range of conditions in CF patients were treated with Acupuncture/CHM including pain (60%), mental-emotional (20%) and breathlessness (7%). Animal CF-models were treated with CHM for Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a prevalent CF lung infection. All studies reported positive findings, some statistically significant. Appraised studies had quality and bias issues.

Conclusions

Existing literature on the role of acupuncture/CHM for treatment of CF is limited both in quality and quantity. Treatment for conditions causing serious adverse effects to CF patients have been researched using various study designs including case study and quasi-experimental pre-test/post-tests. While a role for acupuncture/CHM in treating CF has been identified, this has not been demonstrated definitively by this review and warrants further CF-specific research.